What HAPPENS when you walk into a room?

This is a recent picture of Dr Dean Tyson and I leading a 3 hour workshop at UPenn Vet School.

We’re facilitating a year long “Barth Communication Excellence Series” designed to give the students the tools and training to enhance their “Soft Skills”, now called “Essential Skills”, needed to be successful in their lives and their future work in the Veterinary Industry.

This learning focuses on the concept of Emotional Intelligence. EI a powerful tool that drives your success and happiness. The first component of EI is Self-Awareness.

We saw a great question recently that really pinpoints this concept: The question was “What HAPPENS when you walk into a room?” The answer to this question can be very eye opening. Do you bring a negative energy into a space? Do you intimidate others? Are they empowered when they see you?

Understanding ourselves is the first step to understanding others and improving our effective communication skills. How we relate to clients, our team members, and essentially everyone in our lives can be improved by understanding and developing our own self-awareness.

Enhancing our self-awareness begins the journey to achieving higher emotional intelligence. We simply must be aware of our own emotions before we can manage them effectively. Self-awareness of our emotions also helps us to empathize, so we can better understand what others are experiencing. Take time to look in the mirror every morning before you walk out the door and checking how you will appear before others. SELF AWARENESS IS THE PATH TO YOUR HIGHEST POTENTIAL. It will not only make you a better doctor, technician, or receptionist, but it will make you a better everything!

Think about self-awareness like this: you know how you feel when you’re anxious to get somewhere but you’re stuck in a conversation with someone else — your mind becomes focused on the getting out the door instead of how to tactfully wrap things up with your colleague. Being aware of this anxiety and redirecting your attention from where you are trying to go to the conversation right in front of you will build respect and trust.